Time is something that can never be viewed in perspective. When I was 12 years old I would have said, “ I will never try a cigarette.” I then just couldn’t understand why someone would do something that could obviously kill him or her. When you are young you just can’t see how you will think about things in the future.

I am older and I have tried a cigarette, and I know why. There is a balance that each person must reach in life. This balance is between the quality of life and the longevity of life. Trying a cigarette once or twice was not going to kill me or make me a addict, but it is possible that it shortened my maximum possible lifespan. I decided the life experience of knowing what a cigarette tastes like and how it makes you feel was worth taking this chance.

If everyone wanted to make sure they lived to the maximum possible lifespan, we would all live very strict and restricted lives. Everyone would become a vegetarian, because a well thought out diet without meat would always be healthier. Everyone would exercise. Cars couldn’t exist as they do now; we would be too concerned with the air we breathe. Every person accepts some health risks in return for the style of life they would like to live.

Where is the line between an exciting life worth remembering or a long life spent trying to live another day? What allows me to decide if a tiny experience is worth losing some of my life? If there were no consequences, I would want to try everything. There is nothing I can think of that I wouldn’t try. Pain would be the only thing that could deter me from knowing what it is like to go through something. Is it fear of shortening our lives that keeps people from doing all the things out there in the world? All the “temptations” have consequences: sex, drugs, skipping school, fights, driving, cheating, and standing up for what you believe in. Some consequences are mental; others are physical.

When I was younger I could never comprehend why anyone would want to hurt other people. I have grown older, and I know what it feels like to want to hurt someone. I also know what it feels like to be hurt, physically and emotionally.

When you look back in life you remember the happiest moments and the worst moments. All the little bad moments that upset you disappear. You are left with the big ones: joy and misery. Perhaps this is why everything looks better in the past. Your first kiss, your first relationship, or the first time you felt like the coolest kid in school. Everyone remembers moments like these.

If so much of what I believed when I was little has changed, what will happen in the future? I am only 18 years old. I know what it is like to want to hurt, but can’t see why people kill. So will I eventually know what it is like to want to kill someone? Every time I think I know what is right and what is wrong, I see all the mistakes I have made in the past.

Time goes quickly or slowly, depending on the situation. I have known some people since 5^th grade. We still talk and say hello, but I feel as if I haven’t known them. I have some friends from 7^th grade. We see each other and talk almost every day. I feel as if I have known them forever. There isn’t a moment I can remember in which they aren’t involved, one-way or another.

I have moved quickly through some friends and felt close and then everything disappears. Others I feel close to and they have always been there for me. You look back on friends you have lost and you can’t see why you ever trusted or talked with them. Everything looks completely different based on when you look at it.

College is a big fear to some people; to others it is exciting. Two years from now people may not know why they were so worried. On the other hand, some may be wondering how they already feel so comfortable away from their homes and families and how the excitement of going away has been lost.

Nothing ever stays the same; anything you look at now will be different later. Everything you do now will affect how you live and how long you live. Not everything and everyone you want to remember will become a memory. People you hate now might be your friends later. People you care about now may drop out of your life.

Look at your life now and think how you thought it would be. However different your thoughts were from reality is only a guide to how different your life will become in a few years.